Thank you to everyone who lobbied their Federal MP's to have questions tabled for ASIC in today's Senate Estimates hearing.
ASIC's time slot in today's hearing ran for over three hours - two hours longer than originally allotted. Most of that time was taken up by the Shipton/Crennan relocation payment scandal with different senators asking the same questions that in my opinion had already been adequately covered by the Speaker. Plus one annoying senator that took up an inappropriate amount of time seeking an easing of regulations on time-share salesmen. Seriously - there are more important issues afoot than easing regulations on time-share salesmen!
Kudos to Senator Andrew Bragg for being the only Senator to highlight ASIC's failure to secure prosecutions for corporate misconduct.
This produced some outlandish remarks from ASIC Commissioner Karen Chester:
"ASIC has implemented improved triage practices when deciding what to litigate and what to let slide although ASIC is unable to share these improved triage practices in the public domain."
"A capability review of ASIC conducted in 2015 found that ASIC's litigation success rate was "too high" and the supreme court justices felt that ASIC was pursuing low hanging fruit rather than testing the limits of the law."
I believe Karen Chester was attempting to spin the following statement from the following ASIC Capability Report published in April 2016:
https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-03/ASIC-Capability-Review-Final-Report.pdf (Page 22)
"There is a perception that ASIC’s selection of cases for litigation can be risk averse (tending to prefer cases with a higher probability of success, rather than selecting cases that have strong merits, but also allow ASIC to test the veracity of the law)."
Sorry Ms Chester but I believe the statement is more in line with my portrayal of "ASIC the Toothless Turtle" than your interpretation of "ASIC the Over-Achiever":
https://hotcopper.com.au/posts/42894917/single
